President Trump, who has an extensive track record of stiffing contractors who worked for his company, blocked a measure that would have given back pay to federal contractors who lost five weeks of wages during the last month’s extended government shutdown.
While hundreds of thousands of federal workers received back pay for the wages they missed during the longest shutdown in American history, employees of federal contractors were barred from working and are not entitled to back pay.
Democratic negotiators pushed to include back pay for as many as 580,000 federal contractors in the spending deal that would give Trump more than $1.3 billion toward a border fence but were rebuffed by the president.
“I’ve been told the president won’t sign that,” Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told reporters Wednesday, according to NBC News. “I guess federal contractors are different in his view than federal employees.”
The measure would have been the first ever to give back pay to contractors, who did not receive back pay after previous shutdowns.
A Trump administration official argued to HuffPost that the cost of giving back pay […]
What a pig Trump is. He should be made to pay these contractors from his own pocket. He caused them to loose their money so he should pay them what they are owed.
I understand why someone who is employed by the government would get paid back for furlough time that they were unable to work; technically they are getting paid for time they did not actually work, but if the government wants to continue functioning it needs workers to return when it reopens for business, so they pay back for furlough time to incentivize the workers to hold out in the event of future shutdowns. That being said, a contractor can choose to work for whatever client they choose, so it is on them to find other work if their government contract gets stalled during a shut down. If they are not being paid for work they actually performed, that’s another story, but as a tax payer I would be pretty upset to find out that government contractors were paid for time they spent not working. It sucks, but if you contract with the government it’s a risk you take. Paying them for work not performed would be equivalent to a mobster from the Saranto’s negotiating pay for no-show contractors… and in reality it would be worse, because at least the fat monster who gets paid to punch a time card has to at least show up to the job site.
What to say about your reasoning for non payment of a previously agreed upon contract? So Charles, as a “taxpayer” you don’t think someone who doesn’t show for work because his place of work is shut should not receive his pay because he made the mistake of contracting with the government? To me that is ethically and legally unsupportable-very unfair just like our president. Besides after the huge tax cut very little of your money is sustaining government revenues.